The invention relates generally to power-driven conveyors and more particularly to conveyors with sensor-instrumented belts advancing with conveyed products undergoing a thermal treatment, such as pasteurizing, warming, or cooling.
Conveyor belts are commonly used to convey products through pasteurizers, warmers, coolers, freezers, and other equipment that subjects the products to a heat-treatment process. These processes are often monitored by sensors, such as temperature sensors, located at fixed positions within an enclosure through which the conveyor runs. In some instances, an operator takes manual readings at various spots in the enclosure with a handheld sensor. In either case, the sensor readings are taken at relatively few fixed positions not necessarily close to the conveyed products. Consequently, they can provide only imprecise estimates of the actual heat treatment the products are undergoing.